I’m tempted to insert a link here – click if you’re still reading this blog – because rumour has it that when the word “platform” appears in a technology conversation, the usual reaction among participants is “run”. In the opposite direction.

I have a feeling, and it doesn’t exactly make me prescient, that we’ll be hearing a lot about “digital disruption” in Barcelona at MWC 2018 next week. Conversations on the subject will doubtless run the gamut of familiar subjects: Infrastructure disruption, services disruption, business model disruption, delivery mechanism disruption, you name it. What do they all involve? And all fueled by the journey (quest) to becoming a Digital Services Provider.

There’s a strong rumour that the “better future” that we’ll (and by “we”, I mean the telecoms industry collectively) be discussing in Barcelona next week won’t include BSS and OSS, at least as we know them. This immediately throws up two questions worthy of attention:

BSS and OSS stacks are, on the cusp of MWC2018 and in the face of network and service evolution, either in a mess or performing sub-optimally (take your pick). There seems little point in engaging in a lengthy debate about which of those assertions is nearer to the truth when the general consensus seems to be that either way the status quo has to change. The question is how?

2018 for CIOs brings pressure to deliver digital transformation. This means that speeding up, scaling and distributing integration capabilities across organizations is the poster child of evolving job descriptions, the “new black”. You don't have to look for to see why this is the case but for the record:

IoT threatens to be a familiar story for IT leaders. Yes, it’s disruptive. IoT can unlock both opportunity and value. And no, it’s not an easy model to transition to. This may be why to date relatively few best IoT practices have emerged and while IoT is far from sound and fury signifiying nothing, the something that it does signify remains unclear. Faced with this reality, technology leaders need to identify the compelling business value IoT Use Cases will deliver. And for now, they’d do well to focus on those that deliver quickly ideally with results quantifiable within the first year.

Cloud computing may no longer be new but as is often the case with technology advances, enabling infrastructure hasn’t caught up with concept. So that aspect of virtualisation either is, or is is still moving towards, becoming something different. It’s usually the latter-enablement struggling to keep up with present reality and not being “there” yet. Because there is an urgency about transitioning to the Cloud, this “moving towards” needs to happen quickly. Complicating things here is that Cloud computing affects virtually all aspects of IT. Most consider it to be central to future success — digital business, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), algorithmic business and bimodal IT are all Cloud-dependent. But the “how to” question still, for most, remains.

Here’s the third (and final) part of our review of Heavy Reading’s recent OSS in the Era of NFV/SDN conference in London. Even if the event raised many more questions than it provided answers, that alone is a pointer to the present state of virtualisation in telco networks.

Our last blog started our review of Heavy Reading’s OSS in the Era of NFV/SDN conference in London. Here, we continue with our report which, as already mentioned suggests that the state of the two virtualisation technologies in telco presently raises many more questions than it provides answers.